FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kormod on October 23, 2011, 03:19:14 PM
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Anyone care to take a crack at this one? The only one I can come up with is Vincent Gallo for Buffalo '66. I'd also say Sergio Leone for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Orson Welles for Citizen Kane, and Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction; but I get that those directors made/have made other great films that people might think are even better.
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My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular. I can't decide which one is his best though, so as a good contrarian whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.
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My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular. I can't decide which one is his best though, so whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.
Shutter Island is his biggest hit.
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My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular. I can't decide which one is his best though, so whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.
Shutter Island is his biggest hit.
Really?!
I think Jackie Brown is Tarantino's best film, and I think I'm not alone in this, but it's far from his most popular.
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My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular. I can't decide which one is his best though, so whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.
Shutter Island is his biggest hit.
Really?!
I think Jackie Brown is Tarantino's best film, and I think I'm not alone in this, but it's far from his most popular.
Yup.
"The film opened #1 at the box office with $41 million, according to studio estimates. The movie gave Scorsese his best box office opening yet.[30] The film remained #1 in its second weekend with $22.2 million.[31] Eventually, the film has grossed $128,012,934 in North America and $166,790,080 in foreign markets, for a total of $294,803,014[2] and became Scorsese's highest-grossing film worldwide."
I didn't check but I'm sure Boxcar Bertha is #2.
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Didn't see Shutter Island, but it can't be worse than Bringing Out the Dead.
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Shyamalan.
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Didn't see Shutter Island, but it can't be worse than Bringing Out the Dead.
My memory of Bringing Out the Dead is pretty hazy, but I think Shutter Island might be worse. With the exception of Mark Ruffalo saying "boss" the whole movie, I detested it.
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In some ways Chase became more like Scorsese than Scorsese himself.
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I would postulate that Bringing Out the Dead is a forgotten Scorsese gem. It's not perfect but it's certainly more interesting than, say, Gangs of New York.
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I had read the book before seeing Bringing Out the Dead and thought it must be the most exact, literal book-to-film adaptation ever. I mean faithful to a fault, almost imagination-free. This told me that Paul Schrader was truly picking up a paycheck for doing the screenplay and Scorsese's heart just wasn't much in it. I don't think it was quite as bad as The Color of Money, though.
Anyway, calling Shutter Island the most popular based on box office makes me feel like Dave from Knoxville in that other item. How many people saw it based on the studio hype and thought it stunk? Over time, I can't believe more people haven't seen and remembered Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Who the hell ever makes a pop-cultural reference to Shutter Island?
I agree about Jackie Brown, btw.
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I'm a Brownie too!
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I had read the book before seeing Bringing Out the Dead and thought it must be the most exact, literal book-to-film adaptation ever. I mean faithful to a fault, almost imagination-free. This told me that Paul Schrader was truly picking up a paycheck for doing the screenplay and Scorsese's heart just wasn't much in it. I don't think it was quite as bad as The Color of Money, though.
Anyway, calling Shutter Island the most popular based on box office makes me feel like Dave from Knoxville in that other item. How many people saw it based on the studio hype and thought it stunk? Over time, I can't believe more people haven't seen and remembered Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Who the hell ever makes a pop-cultural reference to Shutter Island?
I agree about Jackie Brown, btw.
Shutter Island held up pretty well over several weeks at the box office and had plenty of that twisty bullshit that people have come to expect, but obviously it won't be as highly regarded in the long run. Still, once you get past dollars the measure of true popularity can get pretty damn subjective. I would think Goodfellas must be a more popular film than Raging Bull and Taxi Driver. In addition to being a great film, it's also fairly straightforwardly entertaining, whereas RB and TD are more confrontational films likely to make average viewers uncomfortable/confused. Hell, Cape Fear may still be more popular than those two.
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They're confrontational, but I think it's more the slower pace which challenges the masses.
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Alfred Hitchcock North By Northwest.
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Alfred Hitchcock North By Northwest.
Psycho, dawg.
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Alfred Hitchcock North By Northwest.
Psycho, dawg.
Psycho Dawg? I think you are referring Cujo. Not a Hitchcock picture.
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Francis Ford Coppola and Godfather/Godfather Part II.
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Really?
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Francis Ford Coppola and Godfather/Godfather Part II.
I have to respectfully disagree here.
I think The Conversation is the best film Coppola ever made.
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Francis Ford Coppola and Godfather/Godfather Part II.
I have to respectfully disagree here.
I think The Conversation is the best film Coppola ever made.
The Godfather is low on my Coppola list too. I'm with you on The Conversation being the best. It's been years but I really like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish as well.
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Are you guys joking?
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Contrarians.
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When compraring older movies' box office success with newer ones you have to take into account the ticket prices of their respective eras and inflation. Judging by pure numbers, Avatar" is the most successful movie of all time but adjusted for inflation it's "Gone With The Wind". By the numbers "The Departed" is Scorsese's biggest money-maker ($132 m) but adjusted for inflation "Cape Fear" might be his biggest- it made almost $80 m in 1991. Go to boxofficemojo.com for more bo grosses and adjustments.
I'm going with Kubick "2001" w/adjusted gross b.o. at $341 m (it made about $40 m in the 60s/70s and cost about $10 in 1968 dollars to make. I think it's his best film, w/"The Shining" right behind
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Judging by pure numbers, Avatar" is the most successful movie of all time
This might be a case where a director's worst film is also his most popular.
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Judging by pure numbers, Avatar" is the most successful movie of all time
This might be a case where a director's worst film is also his most popular.
Didn't he do Piranha 2? And how does James Cameron's "Aquaman" fit into that.
And I made the Coppola comment based on my opinion that Godfather I and II are his best in my opinion. If that's not true for everyone, then let the debates rage!
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I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films. I don't know if I agree (actually I kinda do re. The Conversation), but I'm not sure it's all that contrarian.
The only James Cameron movie I've ever liked was Terminator.
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I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films.
I find this doubtful. There's probably no better index of serious critical opinion than the once-per-decade BFI Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films of All Time. In 1992, when they started polling directors and critics separately, both Godfathers wound up in the directors' top ten, though not the critics'. In 2002, the critics put G&GII, considered as a unit, fourth (after Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and The Rules of the Game.) The directors put them second, after Kane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound)
My sense is that the overwhelming critical consensus on Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed, and that to call it better than G&GII is indeed pretty contrarian.
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I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films.
I find this doubtful. There's probably no better index of serious critical opinion than the once-per-decade BFI Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films of All Time. In 1992, when they started polling directors and critics separately, both Godfathers wound up in the directors' top ten, though not the critics'. In 2002, the critics put G&GII, considered as a unit, fourth (after Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and The Rules of the Game.) The directors put them second, after Kane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound)
My sense is that the overwhelming critical consensus on Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed, and that to call it better than G&GII is indeed pretty contrarian.
I think that you are seeing our Conversation praise as contrarian because we like more of a low-key movie compared to this grand effort. It's like preferring Taxi Driver to GoodFellas (which I do) or Reservoir Dogs to Pulp Fiction (which I don't). Is a movie more important when the budget and idea big?
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I don't think it's necessarily the majority opinion, especially among movie critics. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily contrarian to dislike the Godfather movies, or rate other Coppola movies above it. I've found myself defending them to friends, and have read takedowns of them more than once.
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I love you people. Could this level of discussion be conducted on any other board? Not any I am aware of.
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The Godfather is low on my Coppola list too. I'm with you on The Conversation being the best. It's been years but I really like The Outsiders and Rumble Fish as well.
After Swayze died I went through his canon and The Outsiders was the only one I couldn't get through. I had fond memories of this movie but wowzers it was really stinko lousy.
-AG
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Apocalypse Now is better than Part III- that's it.
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Nobody here's going to defend "Jack"?
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Nobody here's going to defend "Jack"?
Jack v. One From The Heart. What say you?
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Ivan Reitman and Ghostbusters.
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It's been a while since I watched Citizen Kane, but my favorite Orson Welles is either Lady from Shanghai or Touch of Evil. I still haven't seen The Trial, The Immortal Story, Falstaff or the other Shakespeare films. Magnificent Ambersons does not withstand the cuts and reshoots.
Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's best.
My votes are for
Jaromil Jireš - Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
David Lean - Lawrence of Arabia
Fritz Lang - Metropolis
Fellini - 8½
Harold Ramis - Groundhog Day
Fernando Meirelles - City of God
Charles Laughton - Night of the Hunter
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It's been a while since I watched Citizen Kane, but my favorite Orson Welles is either Lady from Shanghai or Touch of Evil. I still haven't seen The Trial, The Immortal Story, Falstaff or the other Shakespeare films. Magnificent Ambersons does not withstand the cuts and reshoots.
Once Upon a Time in the West is Leone's best.
My votes are for
Jaromil Jireš - Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
David Lean - Lawrence of Arabia
Fritz Lang - Metropolis
Fellini - 8½
Harold Ramis - Groundhog Day
Fernando Meirelles - City of God
Charles Laughton - Night of the Hunter
The Trial is a good one. Different ending than the book.
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Admittedly this gets easier when the director has a smaller body of work, but naming Night of the Hunter, Laughton's only film, takes some stones.
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Judging by pure numbers, Avatar" is the most successful movie of all time
This might be a case where a director's worst film is also his most popular.
Didn't he do Piranha 2? And how does James Cameron's "Aquaman" fit into that.
And I made the Coppola comment based on my opinion that Godfather I and II are his best in my opinion. If that's not true for everyone, then let the debates rage!
I've never seen Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (though I've seen all of Cameron's other films). Judging by the flying piranha clip on YouTube, I'd say it's better than Avatar.
Is Kurosawa's most popular film Rashomon or Seven Samurai? I'd say Seven Samurai is his best (but I'm sure someone's going to disagree and say Ikiru, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Rashomon is better).
Also, Robert Zemeckis - Back to the Future. Maybe not: As of June 2011, Forrest Gump is ranked as the 23rd highest grossing domestic film and 45th worldwide.[43][44]
The film took 66 days to surpass $250 million and was the fastest grossing Paramount film to pass $100 million, $200 million, and $300 million in box office receipts (at the time of its release).[45][46][47] The film had gross receipts of $329,694,499 in the U.S. and Canada and $347,693,217 in international markets for a total of $677,387,716 worldwide.[1]
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Everyone knows Dementia 13 is Francis Ford Coppola's best movie.
Also, my "really?" earlier was meant to be a response to H. Boulevard's assertion that North by Northwest is both Hitchcock's best and his most popular movie.
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Speaking of Aquaman: Billy Walsh - Queens Boulevard.
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Is Kurosawa's most popular film Rashomon or Seven Samurai? I'd say Seven Samurai is his best (but I'm sure someone's going to disagree and say Ikiru, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Rashomon is better).
You tried to be so careful - mucho props! But you missed "Yojimbo," which has to be on your list, and his actual best film, which is "High and Low."
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Terrance Young / Thunderball (1965)
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I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films.
I find this doubtful. There's probably no better index of serious critical opinion than the once-per-decade BFI Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films of All Time. In 1992, when they started polling directors and critics separately, both Godfathers wound up in the directors' top ten, though not the critics'. In 2002, the critics put G&GII, considered as a unit, fourth (after Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and The Rules of the Game.) The directors put them second, after Kane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound)
My sense is that the overwhelming critical consensus on Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed, and that to call it better than G&GII is indeed pretty contrarian.
Also G&GII won the Oscars for Bext Picture/Writing. And GII also got Best Director. All his other films were nominated without winning.
I agree that Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed,
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Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)
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Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)
Bullitt is better than Krull (1983)? I don't think so. Krull's "King Arthur in Space" takes awhile to really take off but when it does it'll blow you away.
Also "Breaking Away" is way better than Bullitt. The sinewy charisma of Jackie Earle Haley as "Moocher", hello?
Bullitt is actually kind of a dog. Even the famous car chase, while thrilling, is kinda weak cuz the guys who are chasing him look like middle school geometry teachers.
-AG
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Peter Yates / Bullit (1968)
Bullitt is better than Krull (1983)? I don't think so. Krull's "King Arthur in Space" takes awhile to really take off but when it does it'll blow you away.
Also "Breaking Away" is way better than Bullitt. The sinewy charisma of Jackie Earle Haley as "Moocher", hello?
Bullitt is actually kind of a dog. Even the famous car chase, while thrilling, is kinda weak cuz the guys who are chasing him look like middle school geometry teachers.
-AG
Bullitt is terrific, but my favorite Yates is The Friends of Eddie Coyle.
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I love both Godfather movies, but I think it's a pretty commonly-held critical opinion The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are better films.
I find this doubtful. There's probably no better index of serious critical opinion than the once-per-decade BFI Sight & Sound poll of Greatest Films of All Time. In 1992, when they started polling directors and critics separately, both Godfathers wound up in the directors' top ten, though not the critics'. In 2002, the critics put G&GII, considered as a unit, fourth (after Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and The Rules of the Game.) The directors put them second, after Kane. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sight_%26_Sound)
My sense is that the overwhelming critical consensus on Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed, and that to call it better than G&GII is indeed pretty contrarian.
Also G&GII won the Oscars for Bext Picture/Writing. And GII also got Best Director. All his other films were nominated without winning.
I agree that Apocalypse Now is that it's a magnificent effort, fatally flawed,
Wow, I'm getting pilloried for this Godfather heresy. I like the movies. I really do think they're great. But remember, Crash and Forrest Gump also won Best Picture.
I'm probably wrong that I've heard/read people say Apocalypse Now was better than the Godfather movies. But I've definitely heard/read many smart people with good taste say The Conversation was better, or even that they were schlock. I don't agree that they were schlock, but I can't just dismiss it as a crackpot opinion.
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Amy Heckerling, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Or Clueless, I think you could make a case for either one in both categories.
Not that I'm knocking Johnny Dangerously, other than that it kinda sucks.
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Fine, I'll do it:
Troy Duffy, The Boondock Saints
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But I've definitely heard/read many smart people with good taste say The Conversation was better, or even that they were schlock. I don't agree that they were schlock, but I can't just dismiss it as a crackpot opinion.
I need a citation on this. Admittedly there's no such thing as an artwork so universally loved that someone won't say "Ah, I don't see what's so great about it." but there are only two kinds of people I can imagine calling them schlock: 1) High-minded, fusty movie reviewers when it came out who were put off by the violence and their being based on a schlocky best-seller--the kind of culture guardians Pauline Kael saw herself as at war with; or 2) Armond White.
As for The Conversation, sure it's a great, great movie. But the scope and emotional range of the two Godfathers is so much more vast that to call The Conversation better seems to me at the very least to call for some explanation.
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My guess is that either Taxi Driver or Goodfellas is Scorcese's most popular. I can't decide which one is his best though, so whichever is more popular, I'll say the other one is.
Shutter Island is his biggest hit.
Yeah and before that I think it was Cape Fear. Scorsese's hits are shit.
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Is Kurosawa's most popular film Rashomon or Seven Samurai? I'd say Seven Samurai is his best (but I'm sure someone's going to disagree and say Ikiru, Ran, Throne of Blood, or Rashomon is better).
You tried to be so careful - mucho props! But you missed "Yojimbo," which has to be on your list, and his actual best film, which is "High and Low."
High and Low is excellent (it's probably my fourth favorite Kurosawa, behind the Hidden Fortress, Rashomon, and Seven Samurai). I didn't include it on my list because, for whatever reason, I didn't think it was as highly regarded as the other films I listed.
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I haven't actually seen Kevin Smith's Cop Out, which, according to BoxOfficeMojo, is his biggest hit, but judging by the trailer and clips I've seen, I'd say it's Kevin Smith's worst and probably the worst film ever made. If you conveniently exclude Red State from his oeuvre, he's in the weird position of his most successful film being his worst and his least successful film, Chasing Amy, being his best. Sure, Clerks and Mallrats made a lot less money in theaters than Chasing Amy, but I think the cult followings that were developed for those two films by the hockey-jersey-and-jorts crowd throughout the '90s eventually made them more popular than Chasing Amy.
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I don't watch a lot of movies I expect to be bad so I haven't really seen all that many turkeys, but I think Chasing Amy may have been the worst movie I've ever seen.
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So just think, in a better world I wouldn't have seen it and it would have been even less successful.
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Arthur Penn-Bonnie and Clyde
Penn made other films that I enjoy more, but Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have the most far-reaching impact.
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No, actually probably the worst movie I've ever seen was Candy Mountain, directed by Robert Frank with Tom Waits, David Johansen, Leon Redbone and Joe Strummer. One of those movies that made my life worse not only for the 90 minutes it took to watch it, but for months and years thereafter. Robert Frank, there's a guy--no wait. I was going to say Pull My Daisy was both his best and most popular, but actually his best is no doubt Cocksucker Blues, which has been seen legally by maybe a few hundred people.
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I say Bonnie and Clyde counts. I rewatched it recently and was stunned by how well it's held up. Really a great movie. What's better?
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I don't watch a lot of movies I expect to be bad so I haven't really seen all that many turkeys, but I think Chasing Amy may have been the worst movie I've ever seen.
I saw them years ago, but I remember Chasing Amy and Clerks being all right. His other films (all of which, except for Cop Out, I've seen, inexplicably) are straight-up turkeys.
Some other choices:
Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood (debatable)
David Lynch - The Elephant Man (very debatable -- also, Dune made slightly more money at the box office, but I think since Elephant Man has been generally praised and Dune generally maligned, that the Elephant Man is now the more widely seen film).
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Keeping in the provisional spirit of most opinions expressed here, I think a solid case could be made that ET is Spielberg’s best (and I’m assuming that, adjusting for inflation, it’s by far his most successful). At the same time, I would probably name Close Encounters, Jaws or Munich as my personal faves, with ET somewhere nearby.
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Was Nashville Altman's most successful film? I think, technically, that it might be his best (but my personal favorite is California Split...such a great and underrated movie: you keep waiting for the downbeat, depressing turn to happen and the characters to meet some comeuppance but it never happens - they just get luckier and happier). I'm not in the mood to research this but maybe MASH is his most successful.
Anyway, I'm high on coke and I like Robert Altman. Yeah, I said it.
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M*A*S*H* is Altman's most successful film. My favorite is probably McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Ben Affleck - The Town?
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Was Nashville Altman's most successful film? I think, technically, that it might be his best (but my personal favorite is California Split...such a great and underrated movie: you keep waiting for the downbeat, depressing turn to happen and the characters to meet some comeuppance but it never happens - they just get luckier and happier). I'm not in the mood to research this but maybe MASH is his most successful.
Anyway, I'm high on coke and I like Robert Altman. Yeah, I said it.
Nashville is no O.C. and Stiggs.
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Elephant Man has been generally praised and Dune generally maligned, that the Elephant Man is now the more widely seen film).
I would count the Twin Peaks pilot and I'm sure it's the most heavily-viewed thing he's directed.
For some reason I thought Boogie Nights did slightly better than There Will Be Blood but it didn't. That's a pretty clear-cut example in my mind, but others will disagree.
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My Godfather assertion is mostly anecdotal (for example, the writer Luc Sante has said he dislikes both movies, but he said it aloud and I have no evidence for it). Hopefully you will trust me, because I liked the movies and all I am saying is a reasonable person can dislike them and it would be totally fucking insane for me to be lying about this.
The general knock on the movie, as I've heard it -- which, let me reiterate, I do not share -- is that it presents itself as authentic but contains a lot of mythologizing and fakery. I did find this, from Carlos Clarens (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Clarens):
"... For all the curiosity the Mafia arouses in the layman, THE BLACK
HAND and PAY OR DIE adopted an external, legalistic viewpoint, and an
attitude tinged with outrage. THE GODFATHER reversed the viewpoint,
looking from inside the underworld out into a hopelessly corrupt
society from which tradition, loyalty, honor and respect for one's
elders had almost totally vanished. This daring dramatic device would
ruinously have failed had the outside, straight world been allowed to
intrude. Two of the most debatable propositions of the criminal world
were carried to a claustrophobic extreme; namely, that there is a code
of honor among thieves, and that this perfectly self-contained (and
self-sustaining) world rarely touches the man in the street. There was
a frightening, memorable scene in Walsh's THE ROARING TWENTIES in
which an elderly couple was caught in the crossfire between rival
gangs at a restaurant. There were virtually no bystanders in THE
GODFATHER, and none of those who were included retained any
innocence."
"... Puzo supplied the Corleones with fairly mythological dimensions,
but Coppola was to go even further in the same direction. The director
adopted as key scenes in both films the classic moment in mythological
fiction in which the hero, under the influence of the past, confronts
his fate and accepts it, as if the future ha suddenly been revealed to
him. Michael's first kill THE GODFATHER, Vito's in PART TWO, did not
carry the same significance in Puzo's novel, where they were presented
as stages in the development of the characters."
"THE GODFATHER, especially PART TWO, has undergone close scrutiny (in
JUMP-CUT magazine, for one) along critical lines that constitute a
politicization of Robert Warshow's famous dictum that the gangster
embodies a denial of capitalist society. And Coppola, at least ex post
facto, encouraged this reading of THE GODFATHER by admitting to a
metaphysical critique of the American system. It was a metaphor,
however, that Coppola could only activate at the expense of the genre,
that could only function by leaving narrative gaps which, were they
filled, would compromise the dominant premise of the Mafia as a self-
supporting, self-regulating, alternative society."
Is that a weirdly moralistic critique of the films? Sure. But it's more substantial than Armond-White style contrarianism.
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A quick ctrl-F through http://www.listology.com/dgeiser13/story/recommendations-directors-favorite-films (http://www.listology.com/dgeiser13/story/recommendations-directors-favorite-films) reveals that Gore Verbinski and Joel Schumacher like the Conversation better than the Godfather (though of course there's the possibility that they just haven't seen the Godfather). It's weird that the top 10 of the director of Batman and Robin looks like this:
Joel Schumacher (circa 2002):
Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
Lawrence of Arabia (Lean)
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (Greenaway)
Bicycle Thieves (De Sica)
Breaking the Waves (von Trier)
A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick)
The Conversation (Coppola)
Sunset Blvd. (Wilder)
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
The Conformist (Bertolucci)
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Keeping in the provisional spirit of most opinions expressed here, I think a solid case could be made that ET is Spielberg’s best (and I’m assuming that, adjusting for inflation, it’s by far his most successful). At the same time, I would probably name Close Encounters, Jaws or Munich as my personal faves, with ET somewhere nearby.
#4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial adj for inflation = $1,130,579,000 unadj. = $435,110,554
#7 Jaws = $1,020,788,200 = $260,000,000
I wanted to put Jaws on this list b/c I think it is his best, but a good argument can be made for ET. I think the mid 70s/early 80s Spielberg is really interesting as he was going through rough personal times, his creativity was flourishing. Once his real life became a hollywood fantasy (and who says 'no' to the King of H'wood?) his movies became more flaccid and commercial, w/the exception of a "Empire of the Sun" or "Munich" (probably his best since the 80s). "Super 8" is like a great compilation box set of a movie for that period.
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"Best" for Spielberg would be a fight between Raiders and Jaws, not ET (which is still great), in my opinion. ET is the highest grossing, but I think an argument could be made that Raiders has become his "most popular" film over time due to giving way to a series of massively successful films, a short-lived TV series and video games that aren't best remembered for filling up landfills.
In any case, I think Spielberg's relative high points are too close and his biggest successes all too pervasively ingrained in pop culture to be able to pull out one that could be easily agreed upon for both categories to qualify for this topic.
It's weird that "most popular" is, in some ways, just as difficult to define as "best." How about Richard Lester - which is his most popular movie, A Hard Day's Night or Superman II?
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Although Raiders of the Lost Ark for Atari was pretty annoying, with that weird thief dude in the marketplace and the randomly appearing snakes.
I'd be interested in a long-form review on this board.
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Franklin J. Schaffner - Patton
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Franklin J. Schaffner - Patton
Patton did make the most money and was a critical success w/7 Academy Awards, but you might run into Planet of the Apes fans who'd disagree. My personal favorite by him is Papillon